Starmer and Meloni hold talks on curbing migrant boats reaching UK and Italy

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is meeting his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Monday, as the two very different politicians, from left and right, seek a common cause to curb migrants reaching their shores by boat.

The visit comes after at least eight seaborne migrants died off the French coast on the weekend.

Support for Ukraine is also on the agenda for the trip, part of Starmer's effort to reset relations with European neighbours after the UK's acrimonious 2020 departure from the European Union.

The centre-left Labour Party prime minister isn't a natural ally of Meloni, who heads the far-right Brothers of Italy party. But migration has climbed the UK political agenda, and Starmer hopes Italy's tough approach can help him stop people fleeing war and poverty trying to cross the English Channel in flimsy, overcrowded boats.

More than 22,000 migrants have made the perilous crossing from France so far this year, a slight increase compared to the same period in 2023. Several dozen people have perished in the attempt, including the eight killed when a boat carrying some 60 people ran aground on rocks late Saturday.

Starmer promised "a new era of international enforcement to dismantle these networks, protect our shores and bring order to the asylum system."

"No more gimmicks," he said before his trip to Rome — a reference to the previous Conservative government's scuttled plan to send some asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda.

Meloni pledged a crackdown on migration after taking office in 2022, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Italy.

Her nationalist conservative government has signed deals with individual African countries to block departures,